ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to examine the development of Portugal's system of political parties with the aim of shedding light on the dispute concerning the origins of party systems. In the aftermath of the 1974 golpe political exiles returned, underground groups emerged from clandestinity, and the opposition as well as the UN/Accao Nacional Popular began to fragment into discrete parties as the conditions for open partisan activity were created by the Moviinento das Forgas Armadas. The present socialist party was founded in Bonn in 1973 by exiled intellectuals who had been inspired by an earlier attempt, in Rome in 1964, to organize a socialist movement called the Portuguese Socialist Action. The ultra left in Portugal can be subdivided into four categories: radical socialists, radical communists, Trotskyists, and Maoists. Additional evidence for the importance of political factors such as the specific decisions of leaders and a particular policy of a political party has been found for Scandinavici and Imperial Germany.
